In the 1975 Aklan…
we do not find an entry for the 1974-1975 Acalanes Radio Club.
While we don’t find an entry in the yearbook, we do find the Acalanes Radio Club in the Winter 1974-1975 amateur radio call book.
The entry states the following:
B Acalanes Radio Club, 1200 Pleasant Hill Rd, Lafayette 94549
We brought up an apparent state of “apathy” that was running through the student body in the early-to-mid 1970s when we spoke of the 1973-1974 FM Club. However, while we did bring up Acalanes, our example was only from Del Valle. The 1975 Aklan has a few pages that show this was an Acalanes thing as well.
Temporarily Out Of Order
Apathy is more than a worn out word that has been used to describe the way students feel about school life. The feeling is a reality. Getting excited about anything was simply not the thing to do. Anyone with school spirit was really out of it. This lack of emotion affected all kinds of school activities. Especially clubs.“I haven’t really been active in any clubs for a couple of years. Oh, sometimes I join at the beginning of the year. That way if I ever want to take advantage of any field trips or special parities I honestly can say that I’m a member. I guess I’m just sort of a hanger on, but then so are most of my friends. I was really shocked when I heard even AFS, traditionally the largest club in school had to get out and recruit to keep up their membership. I knew Spanish Honorary was getting low on members when all grade requirements were dropped. Still I think a grand total of about fifteen joined and with all the people enrolled in Spanish that sounded like a pretty skimpy number to me. Language clubs in general often have that sort of trouble. Now Los Amigos, the service club, had always sounded fun to me. But when I mentioned it no one seemed too interested so I just forgot about it.
One new club did appear, the Home Ec Club. It was the backbone of the Home Ec Department, helping with both the Christmas open house and the fashion show. It also did service projects and had after school craft clinics. It must have been pretty successful because it boasted a membership of about forty. I wonder if it will last.”
Was it apathy that killed the clubs? There wasn’t much evidence to contribute to the theory that students were simply becoming more studious. Club publicity was never the best, and perhaps students weren’t aware of all the clubs open to them. The most logical reason, however, for club disappearance would seem to be the way students were more into themselves and their own interests rather than group projects. Social life was either more individualized or more centered around a certain group of friends. The decay of clubs can tend to bring about a rejuvenation of those antique groups known as ‘cliques’. Only certain groups would join certain clubs. And regardless of who joined, there were always an active few that took on the responsibilities and did all the work. In years past, clubs had provided much needed opportunities for a variety of people to socialize with each other, just as Homecoming brought together different factions of one class. Regardless of the year, however, clubs were able to give a type of education rarely found in classroom lectures of text books. Clubs gave people a chance to work together towards certain goals in areas that were of special interest to members of specific clubs, and to have fun in the process.
Perhaps this rejection of committment (sic) was just a phase of the aftermath of the activist years when people were often fanatically committed to groups of causes. As with all other trends maybe this one will swing back on itself, the cycle will start again, and clubs will be able to come back and fill in the gaps they have left.
What if they gave a club meeting and nobody came? Three lone club members, Julie Raymond, Caroline Raymond, and Marta Nielsen, accompanied by a room full of chairs, barely prevent the altered proverb from becoming a reality
Are Rah Rahs Really Dead?
By interviewing interested girls, Director of Student Activities Mr. Damaschino chose the yell leaders whose blue and white outfits graced nearly every sports function. Since the jobs began anew every season, fifteen girls were able to hold the position. The short terms of office did little to abate the hatred for the outfit that had been so ‘darling’ at the start of the season, however.No Seniors tried out for yell leader, and by the start of the basketball season the Juniors made themselves scarce too. It was up to the bouncing, exuberant Freshman and Sophomore girls to lead the Student Body.
Cheering for the normal total of about twenty people required courage. No matter how morose the crowd, the yell leaders had to generate enthusiasm. It was hard to keep on smiling.
One of the captions on the Yell Leaders page says the following:
While the game goes on in the background, the JV Yell leaders lead an apathetic crowd in a cheer.
We’ll go ahead and answer the question above as to whether the “clubs will be able to come back and fill in the gaps they have left.”
The answer is yes, the clubs come back. Granted some of them will be weird and not what they were thinking of when they wrote this, such Julie Holbrook Let’s Just Be Friends (JHLBF), but they will be back. And yes, the second J in the initialism is meant to be silent.
That’s all the information on this part that we have at the moment. As with all these posts, please feel free to share any information you might have.
For more on the Acalanes Radio Station KCEQ rabbit hole and other Lafayette History Rabbit Holes.
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